Chris,
Your solution works great. I've tested it a couple of times and it looks
like it'll do the job.
Ron,
I'll download your dll and test it too! THANKS for each of you for
participating!!
Tom

"Chris Bruce <Fr.... @aol.com" wrote:

This formula might do what you want
=IF(ISERROR(SEARCH(" ",SUBSTITUTE(C41,"."," "),SEARCH("
",C41,1)+1)),"UnknownMN",UPPER(MID(C41,SEARCH( " ",C41)+1,1)))

The first part looks for a second space or period changed to space
after the middle initial. If the search fails an error returns
UnknownMN otherwise the uppercase middle initial is returned.

Chris

Tom wrote:
I have a set of data column C that is typically
1) FN MI LN or
2) FN LN or
3) FN
where FN = firstname, MI = middle initial and LN= last name.

I've created the proper parsing for the "FN MI LN" and for "FN LN".
However, when I have data in a column that is FN only (or even the LN only
for that matter), I get a #value error in my MI column. That is, a SINGLE
entry in Column C generates the #value error message.

Here's what I have and I'm unable to find where the #value is coming from
and how to correct it.
Is there an easy way to do this rather than just 'looking at the code'?
Like, can I step through the function to see where the error is occurring?
Or even trace the process with resultant 'true/false' or value determinations?

If someone has a solution, GREAT, that would highly appreciated.
So, here's the MI code that generates the #value error message when the
column only contains FN or LN:
=IF(UPPER(C41)="","",IF(MID(C41,FIND(" ",C41,1)+2,1)=".",MID(C41,FIND("
",C41,1)+1,1),IF(MID(C41,FIND(" ",C41,1)+2,1)=" ",MID(C41,FIND("
",C41,1)+1,1)," ")))

If I can't find a good solution, I'll probably save the *.xls into an *.csv
and Replace the #value to blanks.
TIA,